


failure to communicate

by saiditallbefore



Series: Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019 [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Awkward Romance, Bad Flirting, Character's Attempts At Flirting Are So Bad They Are Constantly Mistaken For Attempted Murder, F/F, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, ghost assigment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 11:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/pseuds/saiditallbefore
Summary: There was a knife in Mantis’s pillow.She wasn’t always good at understanding other peoples’ emotions without touching them, but she was pretty sure that was a threat.





	failure to communicate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wednesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/gifts).

There was a knife in Mantis’s pillow.

She wasn’t always good at understanding other peoples’ emotions without touching them, but she was pretty sure that was a threat.

She had to wonder— which of her new friends would want to threaten her? They had all seemed to like her, but maybe she was wrong. 

She pulled the knife out of the pillow and examined it, without knowing what she was looking for. She’d never looked very closely at Drax’s or Gamora’s blades. But this one was pretty, with swirls carved into the handle part.

If it was a threat, it wasn’t a very good one. Ego had been _much_ scarier. 

Mantis moved the knife back and forth, examining how it reflected the light. Then she placed it, carefully, on her table with her few other little baubles.

* * *

Mantis risked a glance at the other side of the cargo hold, then quickly looked away. Nebula was glaring at her again.

She looked down. The other Guardians were always telling her she needed to learn to be more assertive. 

Nebula was still glaring at her.

“Why are you looking at me?” Mantis asked. Her voice was, maybe, not as firm as she would have liked, but she’d asked the question! That counted as assertive!

“You need to learn how to fight.” Nebula’s words were flat, matter-of-fact. 

“I don’t need—” Mantis began.

“These idiots attract every troublemaker and criminal in the galaxy. If you can’t look after yourself, you’ll be a liability.”

Mantis frowned. She couldn’t fight like Nebula could, but she wasn’t helpless. “I can look after myself.”

Nebula pulled out one of her batons. “Then fight me.”

Mantis glanced nervously at the door. She didn’t really want to fight Nebula. She didn’t know her very well, but Nebula was interesting.

She looked back at Nebula, who seemed to have taken her silence as an assent. As Nebula moved towards her, Mantis dived out of the way. She dodged another strike from Nebula, then sprung up behind her and pressed her hand to the side of Nebula’s face.

Mantis concentrated for a moment, and Nebula passed out.

* * *

Nebula set a plate down in front of Mantis with a clatter. She stared at Mantis, with dark eyes that were both like and unlike Mantis’s own.

Mantis blinked. “Thank...you?”

“Where’s everyone else’s?” Rocket asked.

“Get your own,” Nebula snarled. Then she continued to look intently at Mantis.

“Oh my god, you—” Peter began, but Gamora, who had been sharpening her knives in the corner, pointed one of the knives at him, and he shut up.

(Gamora’s knife, Mantis noted, did not match the one currently in Mantis’s room.)

Mantis twitched her antennae, feeling uncomfortably on display. 

She took a bite of the… well, she wasn’t clear what it was. Food, of some sort. It didn’t taste like much, but it didn’t taste bad.

Nebula seemed pleased that she was eating it, and seeing Nebula happy— or at least, approaching happy— made something deep inside Mantis feel warm.

* * *

Mantis didn’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings, but after she’d spent half the ship’s night cycle throwing up, she swore she was never going to eat anything Nebula prepared again. 

She was curled up in her bed, half-asleep, when the door slid open. 

Nebula stepped just over the threshold and into Mantis’s room.

Mantis sat up, and waited to see what Nebula would say.

Nebula was silent for a few long moments, looking around Mantis’s room. Then she said, “You kept the knife.”

“That was from you?” Mantis eyed the door nervously. Maybe the knife _had_ been a threat. Nebula had been acting very strangely. Strange even for Nebula.

Nebula nodded. 

Mantis frowned, and thought back over the last few weeks. The knife, the fighting, the food... “Have you been… trying to kill me?”

Nebula scoffed. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

Mantis wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or not.

Nebula scuffed a toe on the floor, and continued. “I just think you’re... interesting. And I don’t want you to die because these losers dragged you into trouble.”

Mantis grinned. “I think you’re interesting, too!” She sprang up and stepped closer to Nebula.

Nebula hesitated, then stepped closer to Mantis, holding her hands out.

Mantis took Nebula’s hands in hers, allowing herself to feel the emotions that Nebula kept hidden under the surface. Her feelings toward Mantis were warm, with less sharp edges than her other emotions. 

Closing her eyes for just a moment, Mantis concentrated, and she pushed her own emotions toward Nebula. When she heard a little noise— not quite a gasp— from Nebula, she knew she’d succeeded.

She opened her eyes and met Nebula’s gaze— intense, as always, but softer than Mantis had seen before.

Nebula dropped Mantis’s hands and looked away, briefly. “Do you… want me to teach you how to use that knife?”

Mantis smiled. “That sounds like fun!”


End file.
